[Update] The Town Board of Health is expected to vote on the following matter on June 13.

The Reading Town Board of Health is expected to meet on June 10, 2024 to vote on an ordinance that would progressively raise the minimum legal sales age for tobacco and nicotine products. If adopted, the so-called “Nicotine Free Generation” (NFG) law would ban sales to adults who haven’t reached the age of 21 by January 1, 2025.

By way of background, Brookline, MA was the first municipality to enact a NFG law after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in the town’s favor against a New England Convenience Store Association lawsuit to stop the ordinance. The ruling came down in March and since then ten municipalities have begun considering similar legislation with four of them (Melrose, Stoneham, Wakefield, and Winchester) adopting the new law.

While NFG ordinances are promoted as a kinder, gentler way to ban sales of all tobacco and nicotine products, they are untested and likely to lead to outcomes similar to other laws that impose a drug prohibition. We also know from modeling studies used to support Tobacco-21 laws that raising the minimum legal sales age higher than 21 resulted in a lower net benefit to public health.

It should be known that smoking is on its way out and this policy will do nothing to support that. In Massachusetts, youth smoking is, like the rest of the country, below 2%. While supporters of this ordinance believe this policy is necessary to eradicate nicotine use altogether, the reality is that many adults will simply turn to informal, unregulated sources for nicotine products exposing themselves to all of the risks of shopping on an illicit market.